From Una's SP's mea­­sure to check bribe menace to Election Commission's unique plan to facilitate communica­tion between the polling stations on election day in Meghalaya's Ranikor, we bring interesting reads from The Subcontinental Menu this week.

One more medical student, 19-year-old Aman Kachroo, has been brutally killed in the name of "ragging". Who is to blame? What can be done? Shivam Vij cuts to the chase in kafila.org:

This was in an interim order of the [Supreme] Court in May 2007, nearly 2 years ago. That has not been able to prevent Kachroo’s murder. I have no doubt that more ragging deaths will take place. You can read here a critique of the interim order by me.

If only Aman Kachroo had been able to call a helpline number or email somebody, anonymously, and write that this kind of ragging was going on, and a fact-finding team had immediately visited his college, not only could the death have been prevented but also possibly Kachroo could have enjoyed his college life without even the mandatory ostracisation that freshers who speak up against ragging have to face in their college and hostel. The setting up of such a helpine on the model of Childline was one of the recommendations of the Raghavan committee. But can the Supreme Court set up something like that? Surely, that is the domain of the executive and not the judiciary. An HRD Joint Secretary is Member Secretary of the Raghavan Committee, but the HRD won’t do anything because, well, the SC is looking into it.

To model the helpline around Childline was suggested by HRD Joint Secretary Sunil Kumar himself, but that would need identifying and funding NGO’s to do that. The Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education is ready, but the HRD forgot about this and the SC had no comment.

So two things needed to prevent ragging: a law and a helpline. Simple.